Fall, Winter, Spring
by Legantus
Summary: Well, this wasn't how it was supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a quick, easy mission to a plateau outside of Vale in early spring to clear out some Grimm. So how did I end up in Beacon Academy's infirmary in the middle of Winter? After Volume 2, before Volume 3. Probably. Slight AU for reasons obvious in story.
1. Chapter 1: Mission

This story came from an idea that I had bouncing around in my head for a while. It's something I haven't seen done yet, so I'm interested to see what people think of it.

* * *

 **Chapter One: A Simple Mission**

Ok, I should start at the beginning. Always the best place to start, right? Never understood why people start in the middle and then go back and explain what happened before. Seems counterproductive to me.

Oh, sorry. Got off track there. Anyways, the story.

It was late spring. I picked up a mission at the village notice board. It was supposed to be a quick job – I have two daughters, three and five, and I didn't want to stay away from them for too long – and it paid well. A simple clearing job. Someone wanted all the Grimm gone from that plateau outside of Vale. The one just south of the railroad through Forever Fall, if you're confused as to which one I'm talking about. Anyways, as I said, it was a quick good-paying job that was not too far away from home.

I told my family I would be gone a few days and headed out. I took a flight into Vale proper and hitched a ride on a train heading out until we hit Forever Fall, and then I walked the rest to the way to the plateau. I camped out on the top for a night before attempting to clear the area. No use trying to fight while exhausted, trust me. Never ends well.

The next day was pretty nice, weather-wise. The top of the plateau was pretty windy, but the breeze made the temperature just right. That, and the wind was perfect for what I was about to do. The Grimm are, as you undoubtedly know, attracted to feelings of negativity. However, a friend of mine from school discovered that they could be attracted by other means as well. I started a fire and stuck his Grimm-Bait in the flames, letting it burn and carry the scent all across the area. The Grimm would come, I would kill them, and then I'd head back home to my family with a good payday. That was the plan.

It turns out whoever put up that notice underestimated how many Grimm were in the area. By which I mean they _really_ fucked up on the count. They had said two small packs of Beowolves, at most twelve young individuals each. In reality, there were at least four packs. Each one had a rather large Alpha at its head, and each one had at least sixteen older wolves. They scrambled up the cliff faces around the plateau like spiders up a wall. I readied my weapons, Breeze and Thorn – they're dagger-pistols, in case you were wondering – and dashed forward.

See, I've learned over time that when outnumbered, your best option is to take as many of the important ones out as possible as quick as possible, before they get a chance to react. The Grimm are hierarchical – or so I've been told – so killing the leader's a great way to disorient the entire pack. I rushed forward and stabbed down into the head of the closest Alpha, Breeze's dagger blade going right through the bone plating and the skull. As I was doing that, I unfurled Thorn into gun mode and fired, cutting down the next two down before they had a chance to react. The rest of the pack came at me, and that's when I activated my semblance.

A lot of people seem to think it's speed, that my body speeds up and my brain speeds up too. In actuality, it's time. I can slow down time itself for a while, as long as I have enough energy for it. I have to keep it down to under a minute per use, or I'll run out of energy too quickly and become little more than a nice snack for some Beowolf. I have to budget my bought time effectively.

Fifty-Five seconds.

I pull Breeze out of the Alpha and spin Thorn, returning it to blade form. I run past the slowly falling forms of the two Beowolves I had shot and slice into the three wolves slowly charging up behind them. Their heads start slowly falling to the ground.

Forty-Five seconds.

The other ten Beowolves in this pack start slowly turning towards me, and I charge forward. I spin both Breeze and Thorn into gun form, and fire at the first rank. The bullets come out slower than normal, but still much faster than they should. Never really understood why, but I'm not about to complain about something that gives me an edge. I rush in behind them, spinning both of my weapons back into knife form.

Thirty-five seconds.

The bullets hit the first few wolves, and they go down. I jump over one as it falls in slow-motion, and start carving into the rank behind it.

Twenty-five seconds.

More and more fall down, and I realize I've somehow ended up in the midst of another full pack. I stop and quickly search for the Alpha.

Fifteen seconds.

I suddenly feel a pain in my arm. Looking over, I discover a claw stuck straight into the upper part of my left arm. Somehow it had gotten lodged in there while my semblance was activated. I still don't have any idea when, looking back. I abandon my search and rush out of the pack.

Zero seconds.

Green and black flash around me as I skid out of the pack, making sure to keep my front facing the Grimm.

Sudden, white-hot pain came across my back, followed quickly by another flash from my right leg. I spin, shifting Breeze in my right hand into a backhanded grip, and stab it into the head of the Beowolf that had snuck up behind me. As I shove its now lifeless body onto the ground, I see even more Beowolves. The other two packs I mentioned. I started backing up, as fast as I could with all the tendons in my right leg cut out. I'd almost made it to the cliff face when one of the Alphas rushed forward and slammed me upwards. I tried to activate my Semblance, but I must have burned through my aura reserves because nothing happened. I got hit, and flew up and back.

That's when things got… odd.

After it threw me up into the air, suddenly everything went black. Not you-just-got-knocked-out black. It wasn't like I was unconscious, I know very well what that feels like. This was… like floating in water, only there wasn't any water. It was dark, like in a deep cave or starless night, but only without any of the physical markers you could use to orient yourself. It was just a trackless, dark waste. Which, for some reason had physics that were entirely OK with me floating there like I was submerged in water.

Looking back, I'm struck with the lack of pain. My leg was still torn up, my back had several large gashes in it and my left arm had a Beowolf claw stuck through it, but I felt good. Almost perfect, actually.

Anyways, that only lasted for a minute or two by my count. Then, next thing I know I'm slamming hard into a stone tablet of some kind that I swear wasn't there before and everything is covered in a good heavy coating of snow. My leg, arm, and back all start screaming in pain at the same time, and I'm pretty sure I did too. My vision's going you're-knocked-out black and two teenage girls are running towards me. I didn't really get a good look at them before I blacked out. All I can really tell you there is that one had long blonde hair and the other was dressed in black and red.

* * *

 **Beacon Academy**

 **Present**

* * *

"And… that's all I remember." She finished somewhat lamely, as the school nurse finished taking notes. "I fought some Grimm in the middle of spring and was somehow knocked all the way into winter. You probably know more about what happened after that, me being unconscious and all." The nurse smiled and got up to check the instruments, and her patient turned to look at the small woman in the corner of the room. "Who were those girls, anyways? I assume they were the ones who brought me here."

Professor Peach smiled. "Sorry, it's school policy not to reveal that information until we've had a chance to have you psychiatrically evaluated."

The woman laughed lightly, and then winced from the pain it sent through her stomach. "Sorry, had to try. They did save my life, after all."

Peach chuckled a little. "That is true." She glanced over at the nurse, who finished checking all the instruments they had hooked up to the woman and nodded. Professor Peach turned her gaze back to the woman currently lying on the bed in front of her. "Alright, miss. We've repaired most of the major damage to your tendons and back, but we're going to have to put you under anesthesia and let your aura do the rest of the work. Now, before you go under, we do have a little bit of housework to do." Peach pulled up her scroll and opened the patient's file. "For one, we don't have records of any job being posted for clearing out that plateau for a long time. One of our students has been doing it _gratis_ for a few years now."

The patient tried to shrug, but found herself once again wincing in pain. "Don't know what to say. It was on the notice board, and I took the job." She gave a wry smile. "I wonder if whoever posted it would be willing to give me some back pay for this, considering that job literally sent me into the future."

Peach found herself laughing a bit again before continuing. The Nurse, however, had not been paying attention and, assuming Peach was done, had begun administering the anesthetics. Peach continued on, oblivious.

"Well, ma'am, I wouldn't know about that, but I can look into it. Now, we are missing one other vital piece of information on your file…"

"Woah…" Peach looked up as the patient groggily laid back down, her eyes struggling to keep open. She rushed forward to the side of the bed.

"Quickly, miss. What is your name? We need it if we are to contact your family."

The woman smiled sleepily. "Yea… my Husband's probably worried sick. I don't even want to think about what the kids…" her eyes slowly closed again, before snapping open once more. "Dust, that stuff is strong."

Peach looked imploringly. " _Please_ , ma'am. What is your name?"

The woman's eyes started closing again, and this time she wasn't fighting it. "Sorry… It's Summer. Summer Rose."

As she drifted off into the dreamless oblivion the drugs granted, she didn't notice the Professor's jaw open, nor the frantic scramble that followed as the infirmary staff scurried to find the last medical records of a woman that had long been thought to be dead.


	2. Chapter 2: Conversations

**Chapter Two: Overheard Conversation and Old Friends**

A rhythmic beeping sound pierced the black as I found myself slowly waking back up. I was disoriented for a minute. This wasn't my bed, and that beeping was not my husband's alarm. Honestly don't know why Taiyang even sets that thing, as he always wakes up before it goes off… but whatever. This beeping wasn't him forgetting to turn it off again, this wasn't my bed, and this definitely wasn't my home.

As I groggily looked around the almost painfully white room, I gradually remembered why I was here. A job gone wrong and some major damage to my leg and… and I couldn't feel my legs. My eyes snapped open and I looked intently at the end of the bed. I tried to wiggle my toes... and was relieved to see the blue, paper-like sheets moving. It was only some kind of painkiller… maybe a side effect of whatever anesthetic I had been put under with earlier. Anyways, I didn't lose use of my legs, which is definitely a good thing. Hard to do my job in a wheelchair.

That crisis dealt with, and with me finally fully awake, I took a moment to glance around the room. It's standard hospital - stark white everything with some steel instruments and blue holo displays thrown in to keep the patient from getting blinded by the white-ness - with one major difference. A gray symbol on the wall, two crossed battleaxes with two fig branches underneath. Beacon Academy's symbol. So I was right, I was brought to Beacon. I admit, I kinda wanted to have been taken to Signal. At least that way Taiyang would have found out quickly, instead of having to wait a few days for a call to come. Well, I guess Beacon has better facilities, so I really shouldn't complain.

While I was looking around, I started hearing the muffled sounds of conversation beyond the door. I stopped looking around and concentrated intently on the door. I could just make out the words…

"Come on, professor! We just want to ask her a few questions…"

A teenage girl's voice. Cocky-sounding, fire in her voice….

"Yea! It won't take long. You said she was getting better, why can't she…"

Younger girl. Sort of high-sounding, a little too cheerful for what she was saying.

Huh. Must have been the girls that saved me.

"Look, girls, you know school policy. I can't let you in… I don't even know how you found out what room she was in! Both of you should go back to your classes."

That was the woman from yesterday. Professor… Peach, I think. Must be the school doctor or something. The two girls groaned, then tried to argue before another voice cut them off.

"You heard the professor. I will let you know when she will be available for you to talk to her."

Older. Actually rather quiet, though the voice itself was piercing. Familiar, too, though at the time I couldn't place it.

"But…"

That was the older girl again. It was a sort of wine, but it lacked the fire she had earlier, like she had already given up.

"Go. As you are no doubt aware, you can little afford to miss another Grimm Studies lecture."

The door opened and I caught a flash of red before a man walked in. He was wearing all green, with a rather messy head of gray hair and glasses. In one hand he had a mug of what smelled like coffee and in the other a cane I remembered well from my days here.

I smiled wide. "Hey, Oz. Haven't seen you in forever."

A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Nor I, you." He closed the door behind him and took a sip of his coffee.

"You wouldn't happen to have any more of that, would you? Whatever the docs here put in me is still making a bit hard to think."

He sighed. "Unfortunately, no. This was the last cup. If you want decaf, however, we have plenty. We have to, considering how much Doctor Oobleck drinks in a day."

I'm surprised by that, but I try to cover it up. "Doctor? I thought he was still two years away from that. Well, he always was fast." I stop for a second. "Well, I probably should tell him that his Grimm bait worked great. A bit too great, actually," I say, gesturing at myself.

He smiled again, that sad almost-smile he seemed to have perfected sometime in the few years I was gone. "I'm sure he'll be… gratified to hear that."

I smiled a bit. "So, how's Strategy and Tactics treating you? Looks like the kids are giving you almost as much hell as we gave our teacher back in the day."

The sad smile disappeared from his face almost instantly. "I no longer teach the Strategy and Tactics class."

I frowned. "Well, what do you teach now? I doubt you'd be able to access student records if you didn't still teach here. Let alone access the hospital room of someone who still hasn't been identified as 'safe'. What's with that, anyways? They should still have my student records here."

He sighed again. "I do not teach any class." He stands up, placing his cane with its tip on the ground. He looks more… regal, I guess… than I've seen him before. It's a little awe-inspiring, honestly. "I am the headmaster of Beacon, and you have been missing for over thirteen years."

I just stared at him. Thirteen years? That's... Crazy. It couldn't be true.

He started to walk in front of the hospital bed like it was a stage. I crossed my arms. "Funny, Oz. When did you re-discover your sense of humor?"

Ozpin stopped and looked at me with a piercing gaze that I don't recall him ever being able to do before. "I am not joking. You have been missing thirteen years. I can understand you having doubts, and so I've instructed the staff to allow you full access to Vale's internet network. Feel free to look into whatever you need to. You will find that I'm telling the truth."

He gestured to a table I had somehow not noticed sitting on my right. It was on an arm, so I could pull it over my bed without getting out. A single button with a blue power symbol in the center sat off in the upper right corner. I swung it over and pressed the button, and a holographic keyboard and screen flared to life. An inquisitive poke revealed that they were somehow... what's the word… tactile? I think I heard Oobleck talk about 'tactile holograms' once, so I'm pretty sure that's right. I gave Ozpin a look.

"We've made some advancements in the years you've been gone. I wish you luck on your search." He began walking towards the door, but stopped about halfway through it and turned back. "Despite the circumstances, Summer, it is… good to see you again."

I smiled a bit, still a little taken aback. "It's good to see you too, Oz."

He paused for a moment, nodded, and then walked out of the room. The door shut behind him, leaving me once again alone. I sigh and stare at the computer, before typing in the name of Patch's newspaper and the day after I left for that plateau.

 **Four Hours Later**

I sighed and leaned back in defeat. I had been reading news stories and information about hunter contracts dated after I had left for the mission, and I'd just hit five years since I left. If this was some elaborate prank, then Oz had to have had a team of writers working on writing fake news stories and _just_ news stories for months. That isn't his style. He prefered that to set little land mines that blow up in minor but vexing ways days or weeks after they were set. This would have been a full-blown professional con job.

Which, as much as I wished it didn't, meant one thing.

Ozpin was right.

Somehow I was thirteen years in the future.

It took all I had not to just lie there and cry.

 **Team RWBY's Dorm**

Ruby and Yang walked into the dorm, with Yang almost immediately flopping down on Blake's bed. The black-haired faunus girl whose bed was currently playing host to the blonde brawler rolled her eyes and closed the book she had been reading. "Didn't let you in?"

Yang groaned, before dragging herself upright. "No. That woman is so stubborn! It's like talking to a tree."

Weiss, who was sitting at her bed studying, huffed. "Of course she is. There's a reason those rules are in place, you know."

Ruby wined from on her bed, where she was sprawled out like she was thrown there. "But we just want to make sure she's OK!"

Blake noticed Yang flinch a little at Ruby's words, as Weiss started lecturing the young leader about the importance of rules (a little ironically, given how often the team as a whole flouted them). After a second of thought, she grabbed her partner's shoulder and dragged her off the bed and towards the door.

Weiss stopped her tirade, turning to glare at Blake and Yang. "Where are you two going?"

Yang opened her mouth, but Blake beat her to the punch. "I'm taking Yang to the library to catch her up on Grimm Studies. She's missed a lot of classes recently, and we all know she's not going to study on her own."

After an indignant "Hey!" from Yang, Weiss returned to admonishing her young leader, who had been trying to sneak away. Blake dragged Yang out into the hallway and down the mess of corridors until they came to the empty classroom Yang had used before to get Blake to slow down in her obsessive search for Torchwick. She let go of her partner before turning and locking the doors.

Yang, standing in the middle of the room, was nervously tapping her foot. "Blake, why are we.."

Blake turned around and fixed her partner with a hard stare. "Tell me what's going on."

"What are you..." Yang started again, before her partner cut her off again.

"Yang, you've been trying to get into that woman's room since you and Ruby found out where she was. Both of you almost missed Grimm Studies, and I know you've been trying to get in on your own throughout the day." Blake let the hard stare drop for a second, and allowed a smirk to creep its way onto her face. "You need to come up with a better excuse than having to go to the bathroom, by the way. I'm surprised no one else caught onto that."

Yang flinched a second. "I just want to make sure she's OK. She was hurt pretty bad when Ruby and I found her."

Blake's smirk turned into a frown. "I'd believe that if you had just gone the two times with Ruby. The seven _other_ times suggest there's something else going on." Her expression softened a bit. "Yang, I'm your partner. You can tell me what it is. Why are you so fixated on her?"

The blonde sighed, before walking over to the desk by the blackboard and sitting on top of it. "She looks just like her." Seeing Blake's confused expression, she continued. "The woman looks… she looks like Mom. Like Summer."

Blake still appeared confused. "So you're trying to get into her room because she looks a little like your mom?"

Yang emphatically shook her head. "No! I mean she looks _exactly_ like her. I thought I was seeing things or misremembering or _something_ but..."

She stopped for a moment, before carefully taking an old photo out of her pocket and handing it to Blake. The Faunus girl took it and looked. An extremely young Ruby and Yang smiled out from the picture, being hugged by a beaming woman in her mid thirties. This woman had Ruby's hair and eyes, and was even wearing clothes that looked remarkably like Ruby's. The only exception that Blake could see was that this woman's cloak was white with red lining, rather than all red, and her clothes had white - again, instead of red - highlights. She carefully handed the photo back to Yang. "That's Summer?"

Yang nodded. "That was taken… Dad took it. Just before Mom left." She stopped for a moment, breathing in deeply, then pulled out her scroll. She pulled up an image, then handed it to her partner. "I took this when we found the woman. Just in case someone needed them."

Blake looked at the image. White snow filled the screen, with deep crimson splashed around as if thrown by a child's bucket. In the center… was the same woman, or someone who looked almost identical. Bruised. Bloodied. Cut. Her cloak was shredded, along with a good portion of the rest of her clothes. Her right leg was torn to pieces, and a Beowolf claw - a rather large one - was jammed through her arm.

"I… I see what you mean." Blake handed Yang her scroll back. "The resemblance is…"

"Yeah." The normally upbeat girl sighed. "I have to know why. If it's… I just have to know."

Blake stood there for a moment, before a catlike grin spread across her face. "Well, trying to get the nurse to let you in isn't going to get us anywhere."

Yang looked up, surprised. "Us?"

Blake rolled her eyes. "We're partners, Yang, of course 'us'. Besides, you got me curious, too."

Yang beamed, her sunny disposition seemingly restored. "OK then, where do we start?"


End file.
